


Like Father, Like Son

by orphan_account



Series: What's A Four-Letter Word That Means Family? [1]
Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexual Characters, Canonical Character Death, Coming Out, Gen, Mild Internalized Homophobia, actual dad alexander hamilton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 12:11:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5416490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phillip has done a lot of things in his so-far short life but nothing, nothing equates to the raw fear of coming out to his parent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Father, Like Son

Phillip brushed another stray dark curl back behind his ear as he turned on his heel for the umpteenth time that day. He’d been pacing his small room for a few hours now, occasionally flipping over a notebook or righting a crooked pencil when he reached his desk. Then he turned and walked the few paces to his bed, then to his desk—turn his laptop off—back to his bed--straighten a pillow.

He repeated the motions until he was almost dizzy, then he would stop and do it again. He was sure his mother was downstairs somewhere, the steady beating of his feet against the carpet driving her up the wall—but she wouldn't say anything about it. She never did, except when she thought it was funny that his pacing matched his dads in near-perfect time.

His dad.

That was it, he was gonna die. Yep. Rest in peace, Phillip Hamilton. Age Seventeen. Death: His own father’s… uh. Shame? Disgust? No, those word's didn't fit. Chewing on his lip, Phillip couldn’t even come up with a good reason as to why he was so scared, he knew his dad wasn’t going to care, he wouldn’t… right?

He wasn’t going to face down shame or hate, was he? His stomach was sinking faster than than a rock in a lake, what if he did? What if all those bills he helped pass and court-cases he helped settle were just his dad pretending?

What if he hated him?

Disowned him? No he wouldn’t do that—too messy for a politician. He’d just shut down, stop speaking to Phillip in private but laud him and parade him around in public and that, that was worse, wasn’t it? Yep. Way worse.

Tears pricked at the back of his eyes but he wasn’t going to cry, no no no. He was Phillip Hamilton and he never cried—he didn’t cry. He was (almost) an adult, for Christ’s sake. But his gut was churning, insides flipping over and over and breath coming harder and harder as he forced himself to sit down in the middle of his bedroom.

Breathe in, he told himself, hold…. Then out. The same talks he gave Angie whenever she was having one of her own attacks to calm her down, he would’ve thought it was funny if he wasn’t so goddamn terrified.

He set an alarm on his phone for fifteen minutes of solid-breathing time, and it sure as hell felt like only fifteen seconds had past when it finally went off, the flashing reminder on his screen telling him that he had to, "tell him now or else you never will and you'll regret it until you actually die."

Damn you Past-Phillip. Signed with contempt, Current-Phillip.

He swallowed and stood up on suspiciously un-shaky legs, sliding his phone numbly into his back pocket. Maybe if he had it on him it’ll be harder to take away?

The hallway outside of his room always seemed shorter than it needed to be. To his immediate right was the door to Alex Junior and James’s shared room, to his left was Angies. At one end of the hall was the master, the stairs just a few feet down the opposing wall from where Phillip was standing.

At the other end was the office. His dad’s office. Swallowing down his crippling anxiety, he started towards it. Maybe it was because his dad was in his office that Phillip was practically dying, for so long it was somewhere he just wasn’t allowed. Back when he was toddling about and dad was still just a lawyer, his mother would chide, “don’t go in there, sweetie, there’s some thing’s you shouldn’t be playing with.” He didn’t get it until he was into his teens, realizing that if his fathers wasn’t littered with important documents that he couldn’t risk losing—it was some fairly gruesome pictures from evidence.

But to his child’s mind it was like a goblins lair—something he felt the need to explore but was also pretty terrified of what he might find lurking in the shadows.

But, as it turned out, there wasn’t much there anymore, not since law turned to politics and the worse thing he could find was his dad on the phone calling another politician a “spineless, pathetic excuse for a jellyfished-horsefucker.”

That one was his favorite.

Managing a weak smile at the memory, Phillip raised his fist to knock at the simple white wooden door, listening for something that would signify he broke his father’s concentration long enough to register someone was looking for him.

“Yeah?” The confirmation was muffled from distance and door, but Phillip heard it anyway and let the door creak open ominously in front of him.

For a goblin’s lair, the office was pretty tame. There was a writing desk that was more paper than wood, bookcases crammed with law books and treatises and historical manifesto’s in a dizzying amount of languages that sometimes he forgot his dad could read. It was all warm oak-colored, inviting if not cluttered with enough work to bring down an empire.

“You need something, kiddo?” His dad asked over the rims of his reading glasses. His dark hair was longer than Phillips, something he never stopped finding amusing, and tied low against his neck to keep out of his face. He even set his pen down to talk to him, his brow furrowing as he read the conflicted emotions on his sons face.

“Uh, I just um,” Phillip was a poet. More importantly, he was his father’s son. His articulate, orator, prolific debating father’s son. And there he was stumbling over his words like it was his first time talking to a crowd—and even the first time he spoke in front of a crowd he wasn’t nearly this bad. And he was eight. “Just wanted to talk with you ‘bout something, pops.”

He could tell his dad was getting more and more worried as Phillip stumbled through the opening parts of the well-formed essay he had previously mapped out in his head.

Silence reigned over them as his dad waited for him to continue. When he couldn’t bring his throat to open enough to release his words, his dad stood up, obviously seconds away from just wringing his hands in straight-up panic as he rounded the desk (and towers of files) with ease to stand in front of him. “Phillip, you wanna sit down, son? You look like you’re gonna collapse, are you alright? Are you sick, should I get your mother? Here, sit.” He pulled one of the chairs in front of his desk out, picking up a stack of papers and setting them somewhere else without a care as to where they were. Phillip sat down once he was prodded too again, his head hanging with his chin tucked against his chest.

How could he say it?

His voice felt so small, he felt so small. Under his father’s paternal gaze, even when he kneeled down in front of him, pulling his chin up with his hands. “Hey, what’s wrong?” His voice was soft, the same tone he’d used whenever Phillip was up late ranting or pacing or muttering frustrated under his breath. “You know you can tell me, alright?”

Phillip wanted to say yes, he wanted to so so badly. But he wasn’t his father, his damned voice just wouldn’t cooperate—so instead he just nodded, fighting back the rising shame.

“Okay so since it sounds—or more accurately looks—like you can’t tell me, how about I guess?”

No. He wanted to say no.

He nodded instead, his eyes squeezed shut so he didn’t have to see the disappointment on his fathers face when he figured it out.

“Are you in trouble? Is this about school?”

Phillip shook his head.

“Your friends?” He hesitated this time, but shook his head none the less.

“Angie?” He shook his head, taking in a shuddering breath.

“Alex Jr? James?” Two head shakes this time. His heart was beating so goddamn loud, rushing his ears with blood.

“Me?” This time he couldn’t hide the way he paused, his eyes flickering open to meet his dad’s dark ones. He looked a little hurt, “Phillip whatever’s going on, it’s okay.”

“Pops…” he croaked out before shaking his head, “I can’t, nevermind. I didn’t… I’m sorry, you’re really busy.” He pushed himself up out of the chair, rushing for the door and trying to ignore the way his dad followed him. He grabbed his shoulder, turning him back around, and Phillip really just wanted to leave. He shouldn’t have come in, he shouldn’t have left his room.

He shouldn’t have said a goddamn thing.

“Sorry, kiddo, but now you’re stuck. If you want I can get your mom—she does that look where she can see into your soul and make you confess your darkest sins, I swear. Not as bad as your Aunt Angelica, Jesus, but still pretty bad.”

Phillip shook his head, sucking in another breath, for a moment he channeled his inner Hamilton, “I just. I was thinking about some things pops and I wanted to tell you but I spent all morning, and afternoon, freaking out about how you were gonna react and now I just can’t do it and I’m sorry—it’s just something I’ve been working on since this last summer and I’ve been trying to forget about it but I can’t and now I’m…”

“What’s his name?” Cue short-circuit. Phillip’s brain stuttered and all he could manage was a short and choked, “What?”

“What’s his name, Phillip? Or should I guess that too?” There was a touch of a smile on his dad’s lips, something more amusing than anything else. “You said since this last summer which means you probably met him over this summer—which means on our visit to France, most likely. Otherwise it would be one of your friends from school and you would’ve figured it out much sooner. And I have seen you be rather infatuated with women before too, but that could've been a ploy."

“Pops, wait. I’m not… wait. No.”

“My money’s on bisexual, perhaps pansexual?”

“Dad, please.” He hadn’t realized how hard he was shaking—was it relief? Still fear? He couldn’t tell anymore, too many emotions were surging the teens entire nervous system, “You aren’t gonna yell at me? Kick me out? Anything like that?”

“Why in God’s name would I do that?” His dad said as if it were the most outrageous question he’d heard all day—which he knew it wasn’t. He had a conference call with Jefferson this morning. Clearly his dad figured Phillip wouldn’t be running anywhere now, so he backed up back to his desk, picking up a picture frame from where he had his few little personal effects among the mess. He handed it over, motioning with it a few times when Phillips numb arms refused to cooperate. Eventually he got a hold of it, though, and stared down.

There were four men in the picture, one obviously his father in his younger years. He recognized almost all of them, actually, despite the fact the picture had to be over twenty years old by now. On the farthest left there was his Uncle Herc, always swinging by to steal his father away late at night for drinks and ranting about this or that—never leaving before dropping a kiss on his mother’s cheek or grabbing some of his sibling’s clothes to fit or fix for her. In the picture, he was doubled over, one hand grabbing the sinking shoulder of his friend, the reason they were in France over the summer, actually. Gil, or just Laf as his father called him constantly was a much rarer fixture in Phillip’s life. He was in the country almost as rarely as they were out of it, but when he was there it was a whirlwind of… well… everything. And it showed in the picture too, capturing what looked like the moment before he collapsed into fits of laughter at, judging by the outrageously proud look on his father’s face, something his dad had said.

Then he let his eyes skim over to a face he hadn’t seen before.

“John Laurens,” his dad said fondly, following the path Phillip’s eyes took. “We were friends since I was about your age, actually. We met when we enlisted together, we went to college together and, more than anything else at the time, I loved him.” Taking in the look of shock that was on Phillip’s face, his father clarified, “Your mother knew, don’t worry about that. John and I… we were never an official thing and in the end, I’m glad we weren’t because then I would have never thought about your mother the way I did when I first saw her. I probably wouldn’t never have dated her, or married her and had you and the rugrats two-through-four. But then…”

“He was killed in action,” Phillip whispered, mesmerized by the image he was holding once again. John looked so young, his curly hair loose around his face, around a bright smile and even brighter eyes. Phillip could remember bits and pieces of it, his dad had been so happy one day—then… not. He could remember watching from the kitchen table as his mother’s grip on her phone tightened to a white-knuckled, vice-hold. Her cracking voice calling for his father.

How his dad sounded like a broken record, just whispering, _no_ , under his breath again and again.

“He was, I never got to...” this time his fathers voice was a whisper. He carefully took the frame from his hands and set it back down on his desk. “My point is, son, you don’t have to be afraid to tell me anything. You never have to be afraid to tell me anything. And for your own sake, don’t keep anything about yourself hidden. From anyone.”

Phillip wasn’t aware he was crying until his dad thumbed away a stray tear, pulling him in for a firm hug. “So, am I gonna have to plan more trips to France for you to hit on Laf’s son or can you deal with Skyping him until next summer?”

He laughed against his dad’s shoulder, sniffing back another relieved sob, “Think they wouldn’t mind spending the holiday’s with us?”

“Not at all, kiddo, not at all, but you do know what's next, right?"

"What?"

"You gotta tell your mom, because Lord knows I can't keep a secret." 

Phillip chuckled again, finally pulling back to dry his eyes with the balls of his hands. "That won't be too hard, I was kinda thinking of telling her first. Or Aunt Angelica, to be honest."

His dad pressed a hand against his chest, pulling the face of someone mortally offended, "You would tell Angelica over me. No, wait okay that's fair. I'm a little shocked you didn't, kiddo."

"You were closer?" He said, glancing over his shoulder towards the door, "I know you're busy but, uh, do you think you could come with me to tell her? I don't... wanna do it alone?" That wasn't supposed to come out as a question, he figured, but it did anyway. His dad gave him a warm smile. "Of course, I will," he looked back at the pile he'd been working on for a moment, "rebuking everything Jefferson's said in the last four months can wait a little while longer."

Phillip didn't say anything, but he was glad for the comforting hand his dad kept on his shoulder the entire trip down to the kitchen. His mother was bustling about, as per usual, humming to herself as she peeled carrots and stirred a pot of soup at nearly the same time.

"Hey, mom?" She looked back over her shoulder, for a moment her brow furrowing.

"Alexander? The sun's still up, what are you doing outside your office?" She said, teasing hiding her worry, "Is something up?" She wiped her hands on an off-white apron before pressing her cool hands to Phillip's cheeks, "are you sick?"

"No, no, mom," he said, letting her check him over before he wiggled free of her grasp, "I uh. I made a big huge deal of this with dad and I didn't wanna do the same thing now because I don't think I can do that without having a heart attack so, I'm sorta... bisexual? And I've got a massive... uh... crush on George--Lafayette's son, not the president--and I was sorta hoping if maybe we could invite them to the states for the holidays?" Thank God she'd been married to Alexander for so long, since she caught all of that rapid-fire explanation that seemed to hinge on a single breath.

She took a moment to process however, before lightly thwacking her husbands arm, "Did you tell him about John?"

"Yes! I mean, once he calmed down enough that I could tell him," he said, rubbing the spot she'd hit. She shot him a look before bringing her hands back to lightly cup her sons cheeks, "My dear, we love you no matter what, is this what you were pacing about all morning?" He nodded and she laughed, pulling him in for a hug, "My dear, sweet boy. You and George will most certainly not be sharing a room for their visit."  
  
"Mom!"

**Author's Note:**

> Lafayette's son's name is George Washington and I can never ever get over that and I know it's impossible for him to have ever met Phillip in like, historical senses but AU's are fun and I was having a hard time thinking of someone the right age-ish for Phillip to have met and GWL is around three years older than Phillip.
> 
> Also just historically speaking Alexander was like 99.9% paternal instinct and love and being separated from his children made him so unhappy because all he wanted to do was be surrounded by his kids literally all the time. I plan on having way more slice-of-life modern AU stuff.


End file.
